Merrit Kennedy

Qatar has been isolated by neighboring countries in a heated diplomatic standoff. But on Thursday, Saudi Arabia announced that it plans to open its border to allow pilgrims from the tiny Gulf country to make the annual hajj to Islam's holiest sites.

The announcement comes after a meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and a member of the Qatari royal family, Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani.

Rescue workers on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, are rushing to find survivors a day after heavy rains caused a mountainside to partially collapse Monday morning, engulfing homes and killing hundreds.

At a federal court in Wisconsin, a British cybersecurity expert pleaded not guilty to charges over an alleged malware scheme to steal personal banking information.

Before these accusations, Marcus Hutchins was known for his role in finding the "kill switch" to the WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack last May that "threatened over 150 countries," NPR's Leila Fadel reported.

Hundreds of people are confirmed dead with hundreds more still missing after torrential rains on the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, caused a mountainside to collapse onto a residential community.

Reports on the death toll have varied. The country's national broadcaster announced late Monday that the number of dead had risen above 300 and is expected to go higher. The Red Cross said in a statement Tuesday that at least 260 bodies have been recovered from the mud.

A judge declined to set bond for an Ohio man during his first court appearance after allegedly ramming a vehicle into a crowd of people demonstrating against a white supremacist rally Saturday in Charlottesville, Va.

Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer was killed, and at least 19 other people were in injured in the attack.

But Antarctic conservators say they recently came upon a specimen that tests the limits of the treat: a 106-year-old cake, found in one of Antarctica's first buildings.

This particular cake is believed to have been brought over in 1910 during the Terra Nova expedition of Robert Falcon Scott. According to the Antarctic Heritage Trust, "it has been documented that Scott took this particular brand of cake with him at that time."

The scope of Europe's contaminated egg scandal is expanding, reaching as far as Hong Kong.

Farms in four countries — Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and France — have been blocked from selling eggs after detection of the pesticide fipronil, EU trade and agriculture spokesman Daniel Rosario told reporters Friday.

Police in London say they have arrested a 50-year-old man over an incident caught on video in May when a jogger shoved a woman into the path of an oncoming bus. The bus driver swerved, narrowly missing her.

The four plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority are from across the political spectrum: the American Civil Liberties Union, a health care group called Carafem that provides abortions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

When you think about the Jurassic Period, you probably think of massive, lumbering dinosaurs.

But now scientists say there were also gliders — early relatives of mammals, akin to today's flying squirrels – whizzing through the trees.

Fossils of two glider species, found in the Tiaojishan Formation in northeastern China, are particularly well-preserved, so the impressions left of skin membranes and hairs immediately show they are gliders, University of Chicago Paleontologist Zhe-Xi Luo tells The Two-Way.

A top former war crimes prosecutor has quit the U.N.'s Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria, over what she described as the Security Council's lack of political will to hold the perpetrators of war crimes accountable.

"I give up. The states in the Security Council don't want justice," Carla Del Ponte said in comments to the Swiss publication Blick, as quoted by The Associated Press. "I can't any longer be part of this commission which simply doesn't do anything."

Police forces across Europe are penning whimsical postcards to their most-wanted fugitives this summer in the hopes that increased awareness will lead to more arrests.

The fugitives addressed in "Wish you were here" postcards are accused of serious crimes in 21 European Union countries and are believed to be outside of the countries where they allegedly committed the crimes.

A federal jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., has convicted former pharmaceutical executive and "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli of securities fraud.

He was found guilty Friday on three counts — two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud — out of a total of eight counts. Shkreli is best known for increasing the price of a life-saving drug for people with AIDS by 5,000 percent, from $13.50 to $750 per pill, when he was head of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

The Aldi supermarket chain is pulling all eggs from its shelves in Germany over fears of insecticide contamination.

The egg crisis is believed to have originated in Belgium in June and was then detected in the Netherlands, according to The Associated Press. Millions of eggs have been recalled in those countries. Authorities are concerned about the presence of Fipronil, which kills things like mites and is banned from use with animals used to produce food for humans.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has penned a scathing Facebook post in response to new U.S. sanctions, decrying what he described as the Trump administration's "total weakness" and saying that the package "ends hopes for improving our relations with the new administration."

Former FBI Director James Comey's first book will be published next spring and feature "yet-unheard anecdotes from his long and distinguished career," according to publisher Flatiron Books.

Comey was suddenly fired by President Trump in May, setting off a political firestorm over why it happened and whether the decision was linked to the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

A federal judge in Alabama has struck down portions of a state abortion law, saying they are unconstitutional. Under the law, unique to Alabama, a minor who didn't have parental consent for an abortion could have faced a legal proceeding involving her parents, the district attorney and a person representing the fetus.

Nearly 500 people are standing trial in Turkey's capital, Ankara, for their alleged roles in a failed coup attempt last July.

"They're charged with murder, violating the constitution and attempting to kill the president," NPR's Lauren Frayer reports from Turkey. "Most are military officers who were stationed at an airbase where fighter jets took off and bombed Parliament on the night of the attempted coup last summer."